Born in Nottingham in 1856, Shrewsbury made his Notts debut in 1875 and was a regular by 1880. By the mid-1880s he was widely regarded as the second-best batsman in England (and arguably the best on certain surfaces). His method was technical, defensive, deeply orthodox — the antithesis of Bonnor or even Grace. He was small (5 ft 5 in), neat, and famous for refusing to lift the ball off the ground.
His career batting average — 26.97 in first-class cricket and 35.47 in Tests — does not capture his stature. On the wet, treacherous pitches of the 1880s, when the average top-order batsman struggled to 20, Shrewsbury was several times the only player on either side to make 50.
The Grace quote 'Give me Arthur' (in answer to who he wanted as batting partner) became a public catchphrase and the title of Wynne-Thomas's standard biography. It captures the respect in which Grace, normally a difficult colleague, held Shrewsbury.
The end was sad. Shrewsbury suffered from anxiety and a conviction that he was incurably ill — an obsession that mounted through the 1890s. On 19 May 1903, at his sister's home in Gedling, Notts, he shot himself with a revolver. He was 47.